Make Yourself Tired So That You'll Fall Asleep

Sometimes it feels nearly impossible to fall asleep. You toss, you turn, you fluff your pillows. Nothing seems to work, and before long, you're so concerned with falling asleep that you have effectively given up any chance of shut eye. Fortunately, your case is not beyond hope. To make yourself tired so that you'll fall asleep, you need to calm your mind and relax your body, but consuming certain foods and drinks may also encourage sleep. Mental rest, physical relaxation, and proper diet and exercise will send your body the signal to shut up, shut down, and let you get some rest.

Steps

Calming Your Mind

  1. Establish a pre-sleep routine. Sticking to a sleep schedule will program your body to know when it’s bedtime. Try to go to bed at the same time every night and to rise at the same time each morning. Give your body other clues that it is time to slow down, relax, and drift off to sleep.
    • One tip is to slowly make your surroundings more dark. Dim light signals to your body that it is time to sleep. Avoid exposure to natural light in the evenings, for example, and, inside your bedroom, slowly dim the lights or progressively shut off lights.[1]
    • Make your room a comfortable space. Cover your bed with comfortable blankets and pillows. Also, ensure that the room temperature is to your liking. Flip your pillows, adjust your covers, or turn on a fan.
    • Do anything else that puts you into a relaxed mood. Try a warm shower if that does the trick, or have a cup of a warm, sleep-inducing tea like chamomile or “sleepy-time” blend.
  2. Read a book. If reading makes you fall asleep easily in class, then it should do the same at home during the evening. This is also a very effective strategy if you tend to dwell on the problems of the day — reading a book will let you decouple from those stress-inducing thoughts.[2]
    • Pick something that is easy or bland. Don’t distress yourself by reading the newspaper, for instance, or a horror novel. Pick a textbook or a dense novel, instead.
  3. Turn off all the lights. When you’ve finally put your head down, make sure that you are in complete darkness. This is one of the most important factors in quality sleep. Light not only inhibits the release of the sleep hormone melatonin, but also stimulates the hypothalamus to raise the body’s temperature and produce cortisol, both of which inform the body to be awake and alert.[3]
    • Even if you fall asleep with lights on, you won’t sleep as soundly. If you live in the city, share a room with a night-owl, or always have to leave a nightlight on, wear a sleep mask to give yourself a fighting chance. Try also to use a low-illumination night-light.[4]
  4. Keep electronics out of the bedroom. Televisions, phones, and computers tempt and distract us. They tell our brains to be up and alert. In fact, you should avoid using them before bed, because the particular kind of light they emit (blue light) can reduce the quality of your sleep.[5]
    • One study shows that two hours of exposure to light from iPads and other tablets at night reduced melatonin levels by about 22 percent. Consider ways of changing your routine if you are a heavy user of smart phones or tablets.[6]
    • Resist the urge to browse the internet if you’re having a sleepless night. Screens on computers, phones, and tablets are backlit, which will arouse you from sleep and lower your melatonin levels, making it harder for you to fall asleep.[7]
    • Set a time to stop all device use each night, such as 30 minutes before bedtime.
    • You can also download software, apps or changes the setting on some of your devices so that they reduce the amount of blue light emitted as it approaches bedtime. Your screen will instead look yellow or reddish, which is easier on your eyes and will not inhibit melatonin production.
  5. Listen to ambient noise. Ambient or white noise is a steady, low noise that hovers in the background and sort of pushes out other noises. Your preferred white noise might be light music, "rainforest sounds," or even the sound of a rotating fan. The point is just to have low-level sound.[8]
    • There are free white noise generators that you can find online. If you prefer your phone, you can also buy ambient noise apps. These generators will help you to fall asleep more readily by dampening external sounds.[9]
  6. Clear your mind. If you are the fretful type, try to force out the stressful thoughts about the day, work, or school. Do not reenact problems or arguments from the day in your head. If you find you are prone to doing that, try playing music as described above — and focus all your thoughts on that music and let it carry you into slumber.
    • Quieting a worried mind can be hard. Let your thoughts wander. For example, try the standard technique of “counting sheep.” You might also try to think in mental pictures instead of words.
  7. Don’t wait out insomnia. Studies have shown that staying in bed, without sleeping, can actually worsen insomnia because your brain begins to associate bed with being awake. If you can’t fall asleep within 20 minutes or so, get up and do something else for a while like read. Then, when you feel tired again, go back to bed.[10]
    • Try changing places as a last ditch effort. If you can’t get comfortable in your bed, move to your sofa and try to fall asleep there. Sometimes the change will work.

Relaxing Your Body

  1. Exercise regularly. Working out during the day is an incredibly effective way to rest better at night. In fact, exercise seems to correspond so directly with sleep quality that many of our hypotheses about the purpose of sleep stem from our observations of how exercising depletes our energy reserves.[11] Just be sure not to exercise within three hours of bedtime, as it can have a temporary stimulating effect.[12]
  2. Go to the bathroom. Make a stop at the bathroom just before bed. This will help you to clear your digestive system so that you fall asleep more easily — and stay asleep throughout the night. In the same vein, don’t drink large amounts of fluids in the hours leading up to your bedtime and which might wake you up in the middle of the night. Limit what you drink after about 8 pm.[13]
  3. Get comfortable. Make your body as comfortable as you can for sleep. If some of your clothing feels tight, don't hesitate to loosen or remove it. This includes your hair bands, socks, bra, and anything else that might feel like it's not letting blood circulate freely. Make sure that you have enough pillows and blankets to be comfy, as well.
  4. Fix your sleeping position. If you pay attention to how you sleep, you might notice that you are sleeping in a bad position or putting strain on your posture. Keep your back straight and make sure your neck is not resting too high or too low. If your bed is too firm or too soft, consider replacing it, covering it with a foam pad, or even sleeping with a body pillow to make yourself more comfortable.

Eating and Drinking Your Way to Better Sleep

  1. Eat foods that are soporific. Soporific means “sleep-inducing.” For example, some foods are high in the sleep-inducing amino acid tryptophan, like cheese, chicken, soy products, eggs, tofu, fish, milk, turkey, nuts, peanuts and peanut butter, pumpkin seeds, and sesame seeds. Choose foods that have these qualities, especially for dinner. [14]
    • To activate tryptophan more efficiently, favor foods that are high in complex carbohydrates but medium to low in protein. Carbs make tryptophan more available in the brain, whereas protein has the opposite effect. [15].
    • Plan “meals for sleep” that load up on complex carbs and tryptophan. Try pasta with Parmesan cheese, hummus with whole wheat pita bread, peanut butter on toast, sesame seeds sprinkled on salad with tuna chunks with whole wheat crackers on the side, or a baked potato with cottage cheese.
  2. Keep meals light. Limit the amount of food that you eat in the late afternoon and early evening, as it can affect the quality of your sleep. Lighter meals are more likely to give you a restful night, for example, whereas high-fat meals and large servings prolong the work your digestive system needs to do, and all the gas production and rumblings may keep you awake. [16]
    • Some people find that highly-seasoned foods (e.g., hot peppers and garlic) interfere with sleep, especially heartburn-sufferers.[16] Avoid them if you have heartburn troubles.
  3. Avoid caffeine and alcohol. Coffee and other caffeinated beverages can disrupt your sleep patterns. Coffee stays inside your system for up to eight hours after you drink it, so that cup you had in the afternoon could be keeping you up later at night. Try to go without caffeine in the later afternoon and early evening.[16]
    • Alcohol will also wreak havoc on your sleep patterns. When you drink, you tend to sleep more lightly and fall into fewer periods of deep sleep or restorative Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. So even if you think a drink or two helps you fall asleep at night, you'll likely wake up tired and not feeling rested.[17]
  4. Drink a warm, relaxing beverage. Many people swear by drinking a cup of herbal tea or a glass of warm milk before bed, and there is research to support them. Dairy products like milk are rich in tryptophan and stimulate the brain to produce sleep chemicals like serotonin and melatonin.[18]
    • Chamomile tea has also long been touted as an insomnia buster. In fact, recent studies have demonstrated that chamomile can reduce symptoms of anxiety and is a mild sleep aid in animal test subjects.[18] If you don't have chamomile tea, try other caffeine herbal teas like lemon, ginger, and raspberry ginger.
  5. Consult a doctor about sleeping pills. Medication should be a last resort. The fact of the matter is that sleeping pills are not a magic bullet. Many are habit-forming, meaning that you can become addicted to them, and also do not give you deep and restorative sleep you need, with side effects like drowsiness, headache, memory problems, and behaviors like sleep-walking.[19]
    • Save sleeping pills as a last resort. If you become dependent on them, sleeping will become even more difficult than before.

Warnings

  • If you have been struggling with extremely irregular sleeping cycles for a while, contact a doctor as soon as possible. It could be a sign of a serious illness that needs to be taken care of immediately. Don't doubt yourself about these symptoms.
  • Don't take sleeping pills if there’s a chance you’ll need to operate any heavy machinery, this includes driving a car, truck, farm equipment and factory machinery.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/news/20110119/light-exposure-may-cut-production-of-melatonin
  2. ↑ http://www.bhg.com/health-family/conditions/sleep/tips-to-help-you-fall-asleep/
  3. ↑ http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/sleep-topics/melatonin-and-sleep
  4. ↑ https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-news/lights-out-good-nights-sleep
  5. ↑ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21049182
  6. ↑ http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/resources/newsroom/pr_story.asp?id=235#.Vi99RPmrTIU
  7. ↑ http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/mind-read/what_keeps_you_awake_at
  8. ↑ https://sleepfoundation.org/bedroom/hear.php
  9. ↑ http://www.consumerreports.org/health/conditions-and-treatments/sleep/sound-machines/sleep-sound-machines.htm
  10. ↑ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/ask-a-health-expert/i-cant-sleep---should-i-get-up-or-stay-in-bed/article551118/
  11. ↑ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15892929
  12. ↑ http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/sleep-topics/diet-exercise-and-sleep
  13. ↑ http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/news/20011004/12-tips-better-sleep-troubled-times
  14. ↑ http://www.umm.edu/ency/article/002332.htm
  15. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/health/04real.html
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/foods-that-help-you-sleep/AN01582
  17. ↑ https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/check-the-facts/health-effects-of-alcohol/effects-on-the-body/alcohol-and-sleep
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/eat-right-sleep-tight
  19. ↑ http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/insomnia/in-depth/sleeping-pills/art-20043959
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